the longer the white house slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff. >> president obama responded, showing republicans where they could find the details. >> it's not a mystery. we've seen this before. this is the document that contains the specific spending cuts. the speaker of the house sent us a proposal that was two pages long that included one sentence on revenue. the proposal here includes, i believe from pages 17 to 45, details on proposed spending cuts by the president, pages 17 to 45. i recommend them to you. >> so, at this point, a deal before christmas looking unlikely. as senate majority leader harry reid admitted yesterday. but in an interview with barbara walters, president obama predicted that republicans would eventually give in on taxes. >> the most important thing we can do is make sure the middle class taxes do not go up on january 1st, and i'm pretty confident that republicans would not hold middle class taxes hostage to try to protect tax cuts for high-income individuals. >> prediction. are you going to be able to raise taxes, yes o